Video Storytelling Could be the Key to Bringing People Closer Together

Content Insider #626 – Global Fare

By Miles Weston

“My friends and I appeal to you with the utmost humility. Our people are unable to stop Godzilla. We truly like to help you, but we need your help first. Refuse us then, and everyone will die!” – News Photographer Junko ‘Yoka’ Nakanisi, “Mothra vs. Godzilla,” ToHo Company, 1964

Originating
on opposite sides of the globe, about the only film “actor” who has been around
longer than Godzilla is Dr. Who and both have ardent viewers in every country
of the world.

We
like the older Godzilla flicks because the creation is still fun (O.K., funny)
to watch and the lip-sync sucks. We like
the older segments of Dr. Who because the creation is humorous to watch, and their version of English is almost
impossible to understand (and yes, we have the same issues with Aussie).

Okay
that’s here at home; but when we’re in another country, say Germany, Japan or
Mexico on business or pleasure, we enjoy going to a play or movie.

No,
we’re not fluent in the languages. In
Japanese and German, we know just enough phrases (we have to rehearse again and
again before going), just enough to barely conduct business and get
around. Spanish is so-so. By the time we’ve translated a scene, five minutes
have passed, so we never really catch the dialogue.

But
it’s fine because when the storyline is good, you can almost understand what people
are saying.

Why?

Films–video
stories of all types–appeal to, resonate with and can be understood by men, women,
kids no matter if they’re in Lebanon, Lithuania, Laos or Louisiana.

So,
with Netflix global creep into more than 190 countries Reed and team undoubtedly
didn’t look at it as a major entry barrier when France, India and other countries
said the global streaming service had to locally produce X percent of their content
library in the specific country.

About
the only folks who thought it would be a problem for them were investment
analysts and the remnants of the Hollywood crowd.

They
were sure doing stuff over there wouldn’t be “accepted” over here.

Wrong!

Take
this year’s Oscars.

Alfonso
Cuarón’s ​Roma not only walked off with a lot of recognition for Netflix (deservedly,
he got a couple of Oscars for his work), but the film changed the ground rules for
what is arguably the global industry’s major event and has forced the industry
to give the rules a second look – OTT is just as good as a theater.

The highly personal 135-minute black-and-white homage
to the woman who raised Alfonso Cuarón was classified as a foreign language
film. If we happen to see it when we’re down in Mexico, we’ll see it as it was
created; but at home, we’ll stream it with perfectly synced sound, thanks to
the folks in Los Gatos.

Even
as filmmakers are delighted when Netflix puts their projects in front of millions
of folks around the globe, there are elitist film festival/awards groups that
say not watching a film in a theater but streamed to your home set or gawd
forbid on your iPad or iPhone is heresy.

Yes,
we like watching a good video story in the theater, but watching it on our 4K
HDR screen in our pajamas seems just as good and we can hit pause when we have
to leave the room.

We
agree that watching on a smaller screen seems dumb for even short content; but
hey…your choice.

ACSI
(American Consumer Satisfaction Index) reported that Netflix scored 81 (out of
100) for its original content with HBO, Amazon Prime and Hulu earning accolades
for their projects

Disney
has been bringing all of its movies home in preparation for the launch of
Disney+ later this year, which means Captain
Marvel won’t be available to Netflix subscribers.

Of course, NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia and others are also planning their own DOC (direct-to-consumer) services, so their library titles may not be available to Netflix.

But
Barry Diller, chairman of IAC and former
CEO of several TV and movie studios, recently told Kara Switzer,
editor-at-large at Recode, “Hollywood
is now irrelevant. Netflix has won the
streaming game. Short of some existential
event; Netflix has the subscribers, giving them dominance. They can outbid and
do.

“Disney is making a very big play because it’s Disney
and has so much good content, Bob Iger is a superb executive and is a world
player,” he noted, “but other than that, the movie companies play no larger
role than making stuff.”

He added that Netflix has the global reach, the
up-close-and-personal subscriber experience and the data algorithms to use,
develop and deliver the content people want.

About
the only place Netflix (190 countries total) doesn’t have viewers is China,
which just so happens to have the largest potential audience on the planet, so
you know they’re “talking.”

Viewing
may not be a two-way street – yet; but Netflix knows good content when they see
it.

In
fact, Netflix snapped up the biggest hit China has produced to date – The Wandering Earth. Of course, it’s a sure thing because it had
already racked up $600M globally – surpassing any Hollywood blockbuster – which
has historically been tough for a Chinese film. Since most are “managed” by the
government, many have strong political undertones.

Sure,
it might remind you a little of a mix of 2001:
A Space Odyssey, Armageddon and
maybe a touch of The Day After Tomorrow; but
all good/great creative work is built on the past.

Most
of the country’s films are produced in Hengdian World Studios (the Hollywood of
China) under strict government oversight. And like any production area, they’ve faced
their own scandals like paying taxes, salary caps and other real-life dramas
within dramas.

For
the most part, the Chinese audience puts up with the stuff because it isn’t
that bad and they know bad like every other movie viewer when they see some of
the stuff pumped out by Hengdian, so government agencies are easing up … a
little.

Take
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Skyscraper, whch
was produced by Legendary (owned by Chinese conglomerate Wanda), brought in
$61M (vs. a budget of $125M) in the U.S. but racked up $180M globally thanks in
no small part to his Chinese fans.

Despite
the setbacks and the hurdles creatives have to overcome in the country, the
ambitions and budgets in the Chinese film industry are steadily growing.

Increasingly
Chinese filmmakers are working on projects that “lack” the government’s propaganda
messages, looking for global appeal. The
country may have a staggering 1.4B population or close to 20 percent of the
world’s viewing population; but no shooter or producer is satisfied with “the
hometown crowd.” They have their eyes
set on more international-scale releases because while every filmmaker does this
stuff to make money, they also want people to like and be touched by their work.

While
Netflix works to add Chinese viewers to their growing subscriber list, they
have already begun making strong inroads into the world’s second largest
populated country – India with an estimated 1.35B population.

Few
industry analysts give Hastings’ goal of 100M Indian subscribers much credence because
of their premium subscription rate (roughly $3 per month). However, more than
100M Indians hit the theater three times a year to watch a Bollywood flick, so
they might have a point … we’ll see.

The
Indian streaming market isn’t simple. It
already has a lot of competition with AVOD (free, ad-supported) and a well-funded,
solid library SVOD (subscription) OTT services.

TV
set penetration in India is currently about 64 percent whereas the APEC (Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation) region has an average of 85 percent. Industry analysts estimate the country is
adding 25-30M new viewers a year.

Netflix
currently has an estimated 1M Indian subscribers, so they have their work cut
out for them, but they have released – or will soon release – 24 Indian
originals.

Even
if you sat through all of the award presentations, it was pretty easy to miss
another Netflix winner that the company purchased for the Indian and beyond
market.

We
admit that the subject matter of the short documentary didn’t make us want to stream
it to our set. It’s an empowering story of Indian women manufacturing sanitary
pads; but the brilliance of the title – Period.
End of Sentence – absolutely blew us away once we understood what it meant.
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

But
the Rayka Zetacrit-directed short swept another Oscar for the streaming giant and
was more proof they recognize great content when they see it.

Zehtabchi’s
ability to capture the story of how receiving something as seemingly simple as
a sanitary pad machine allowed women to learn to manufacture and market their
own pads in addition to eliminating the stigma of menstruation, improving women’s
and girls’ health and providing these females with new opportunities.

Perhaps
that’s why Erik Barmack, Netflix’s VP of International Originals, is very bullish
about the streamers growing a worldwide network of studios and projects.

Sure,
the European Commission said that at least 30 percent of their content shown in
the EU had to be of European origin and the company might have surprised them a
little by announcing they were taking on
local 221 projects, including 153 originals.

In
fact, they’ll be spending $1B on European content with titles from the UK, Germany,
Spain, Sweden, France and other countries.

Barmack
was so bullish about the global growth opportunity that he said, “We are
ramping toward 10 to 12 films in each country … it could be more in particular
markets.”

Netflix has long bet on original content as the major driver of growth in the
U.S. and globally. According to Ted
Sarandos, Netflix chief content officer, the company consistently puts about 85
per cent of its content budget toward originals.

The
global forecast is sharply tilted to AVOD in Asia, compared to the preference
for SVOD in the U.S. and Europe.

According
to TiVo, Europe and Asia will be neck and neck in SVoD revenues by 2023; but Europe
has far fewer subscribers and different screens viewers sign up for and different
screens they actually view content on.

Of
course, Netflix doesn’t really care which they sign up for and view because
they have strategically located streaming servers around the globe and
optimized the content for delivery to the screen the subscriber has when they’re
in the mood for viewing.

The
company’s extensive viewing database and recommendation algorithm are major
reasons they not only continually grow their audiences in every country, they also
help them determine what visual stories will appeal to viewers around the
globe.

Rather
than looking at the countries’ content quotas as a hurdle they have to overcome,
they’ve found that it is an opportunity to accelerate local subscribers in addition
to offering global viewers increased variety and entertainment.

For
example, their Japanese series, Tidying
Up With Maria Kondo, has become a global phenomenon because it addresses a
common problem everyone everywhere has, “what do I do with all the valuable
stuff I’ve accumulated?”

Kondo’s
answer is to “simplify” and she has a worldwide audience tuning in to learn how
they can do it … painlessly.

Despite
the theoretical surge in nationalism, people like to watch movies and TV shows
from other countries.

“What
we’re learning is that people have very diverse and eclectic tastes,” Cindy
Holland, Netflix’s vice president for original content, said recently. “And if
you provide them with the world’s stories, they will be really adventurous, and
they will find something unexpected,”

World Apart – The Turkish series, The Protector(l), and Japanese
series, Shoplifters, are two completely
different types of storylines. One features a young man in Istanbul and member
of an ancient secret order out to save the city from an immortal enemy; and the
other features a family that relies on shoplifting to cope with their
poverty.

Instead
of trying to sell American ideas to a foreign audience, it’s aiming to sell
international ideas to a global audience.

To
get the biggest bang for its buck, Netflix offers “local” movies and series
across its subscriber base.

Each
new title carries subtitles in 26 languages, and the company producing
high-quality, properly lip-synced audio dubbing in 10 languages. Viewers around
the globe are finding out the more they’re different, the more that they’re the
same.

True,
they do periodically come up against local censors and cultural arbiters; but
at least they’re doing their part in helping us learn more about each other and
understand each other.

As
news reporter Ichiro Sakai said, “We’re
all human. As humans we are responsible for each other, we’re related. Refuse
us then you’ll abandon your brothers. We must learn to help each other.”